Etude: An umbrella, a feather duster, and a book, Part 2/5

A continuation. Read Part 1.

The entry to the small, square shop is on a corner, with windows and displays running down the right and left sides. The door overlooks a cross-roads of the mall, scattered with benches, trash cans and a small fountain. The nearest mall entrance is through the Dillards to the right of the software shop. This is the way she usually arrives to work, unless she hopes to beg an Orange Julius. Then she comes in through a main mall entrance further down the promenade.  

The man arrived from the left side of the store and could see her through the display window, looking down at her novel, one elbow on the shelf, one foot curled around the other ankle. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. He stopped at the entrance to lean his drippy umbrella against the wall, and she looked up at him.  

He’d seen her before, of course. He was in here all the time. Short of seeing an actual work schedule for the store, he had been trying to figure out her regular nights, but had been wrong most of the time lately. It wasn’t his fault, really. The manager had been shifting the schedule around in odd ways, much to everyone’s aggravation. She wasn’t even sure whether she had regular nights anymore.  

She was wearing that cheap plaid skirt again. The buttons were supposed to be on her left front, but the skirt had shifted so they were along the outside of her thigh. The skirt suggested a school girl’s uniform.He tried to imagine it paired with a white buttoned shirt and knee-high socks instead of a t-shirt and dark tights. Once again he wondered how old she was. Over twenty, he was sure, but not more than twenty-four. Maybe. He hoped she was at least twenty-one.

He had never managed to talk to her yet. One of the guys on staff always seemed to be the one to sidle up offering assistance. Hw didn’t think she was avoiding him, and had several reasonable explanations for why she’d never been the one to say,“Hello, Is there anything I can help you with this evening?”

He stared at her for a moment before realizing that she’d said this out loud to him and was waiting for him to speak. She raised her eyebrows slightly, a pleasant smile plastered firmly on her face.  

“Uh, sorry. Mind was wandering,” he said. She nodded, the Customer Smile still in place. “Could you show me where the OCR software is?” He knew where it was, could name every title in stock. 

“Certainly. Right over here,” she said, turning to lead him around her shelf to a corner of the store. He glanced at the shelf where she had been standing, trying to read the title of her book.  

More tomorrow…